The Grid Protocol
by Ownage Imminent
Summary: While hacking into a computer in Eggmans base, Tails is beamed inside the computer where he must work with other programs to free the system and defeat Eggman's latest scheme from the inside out. Re-uploaded
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Grid

Disclaimer: (I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog)

Sonic and Tails crouched behind a bush outside Eggman's base.

"Alright Tails you know the plan," Sonic said, "I'll be the distraction, you get in there and hack Eggy's computers. Once you know what to destroy, destroy it."

"You can count on me Sonic," Tails said with a serious expression on his face.

Sonic zipped out to the main entrance of the base to draw as much attention as he could. Tails meanwhile sprinted over to a nearby ventilation shaft and crawled in.

Four years had passed since Eggman's last attack. For four years Sonic had Tails, now at the age of nineteen and twelve respectively, had been trying to figure out what the maniacal doctor was up to. Sonic and Tails had even participated in G.U.N. investigations with Shadow to try to figure out what Eggman was up to. Why was he not attacking. What could he possibly be planning that it took him a few years complete. Finally, after four years. They got a lead, G.U.N. soldiers had been disappearing in a region near the outskirts of the Mystic Ruins. Tails flew over the area in the Tornado and managed to spot the base. From there, he and Sonic formed a plan of attack.

Tails crawled through the ventilation shaft and soon came to a ceiling grate just above what appeared to be a control room. No one was inside and that wasn't surprising, Sonic had probably drawn all of the robots and maybe Eggman himself out of the base. This was the perfect opportunity to strike.

Tails dropped down from the ventilation shaft and walked over to the main computer in the room. The computer in question did not have a mouse and as Tails looked closer at it he realized that it only took commands of code. Tails began to type commands of code on it.

"Stop that," a digitalized voice said.

Tails looked around but saw no one.

"Hello," Tails called out.

No one answered.

Tails continued to type commands on the computer until an alarm went off next to the computer. Tails turned it off and began to type faster, desperate to hack into the computer. A few minutes later, the door to the room opened and a armed robot came in. The robot immediately targeted Tails who ducked under the console as a laser bolt shot overhead. Tails pulled a pistol out from his tool belt and crouched. As soon as the robot stopped firing, Tails jumped up, took aim, fired a single shot from his pistol. The shot was well aimed and entered a gap in the robot's armor and hit its circuits, causing the robot to short circuit and explode. Tails ducked as shrapnel shot in every direction, embedding itself in walls and equipment, however the only damage the console suffered was a scratched screen so Tails could still hack it.

Tails got up off the ground and resumed typing into the computer. After several minutes he got into the data. This is what Tails saw.

Plan:

1. Set up virtual network that resembles a recognizable world. It will be called the Grid

2. Establish an algorithm that grants thinking abilities to all programs within.

3. Continue creating programs until a large enough force has been created.

4. Use laser materialization drive to bring army into the real world.

5. Begin invasion of Mobius starting with Station Square.

6. Continue bringing troops into the real world from the Grid to act as reinforcements

7. Continue process until victory is imminent. All captured prisoners will be stored on the Grid.

8. If failure is imminent, release mass virtual drive to pull large cities and military bases into the Grid where they will be deleted.

Tails gawked at what he had just read. Eggman creating a computerized world where he would make an army of programs and then bring them into the real world, that was impossible wasn't it. The kind of technology needed to do that didn't exist yet and probably wouldn't exist for hundreds of years.

Tails began typing again. On the off chance that this was true he had to find out where the computer holding this virtual world was. However Tails was only able to type in a few more pieces of code before a voice spoke.

"You have seen too much," A digitalize voice said.

There was a clicking and whirring sound. Tails spun around just in time to see a shiny metal cylinder descend from the ceiling attached to a guide rail and some cables. Before Tails could get out of the way, the laser fired, hitting Tails with a blue laser. However instead of hurting Tails, the laser turned his body into a mass of pixels. A second beam then shot out of the laser cylinder and began to pull the pixels into the camera lens. Once all of the pixels had been collected the laser returned to its holding cell in the ceiling.

Tails felt as though he was falling down a long tunnel. All around him were long streams of text and 1's and 0's. Soon Tails came out of the tunnel and was able to see a long landscape approaching him. The landscape appeared to be some sort of nighttime city and there was no sun in the sky. Tails tried to spin his tails to slow himself down but no matter how hard he spun his tails they he didn't seem to be slowing down. Tails closed his eyes and braced for the impact. However the impact didn't come and Tails gradually felt himself slowing down despite the fact that he had stopped spinning his tails.

Tails touched down on the ground and opened his eyes. He appeared to be inside an alleyway of some sort of city at night. However the place he was in was unlike Station Square or any city he had been in for that matter. The ground seemed to be made of highly polished glass and the buildings made of a polished dark blue stone.

Tails pulled off a glove and touched the ground with one of his hands. It felt like glass but when Tails stomped on it it didn't break.

"Sonic, come in, over," Tails said into his communicator.

No response.

Tails walked out of the alley way and looked around. The streets were barren except for what appeared to be a few Mobian animaloids like himself walking around. However each animaloid was dressed in what appeared to be a black rubber suit with red markings and each carried a long glowing red pole in their hands and had a strange disc stuck to their back. Seconds after Tails walked out of the alleyway an animaloid wearing a helmet noticed him and spoke.

"This is a restricted area," The animaloid said in a digitalized voice "Identify yourself."

"My name is Tails," Tails said, "I'm friends of Sonic."

"Authorization failed," The helmeted figure said, "All available programs apprehend trespasser."

Before Tails knew it every single animaloid in the street was sprinting at him holding their glowing poles like spears. Tails high tailed it away from the figures and began sprinting down the street to get away from them.

"Trespasser is fleeing," The helmeted figure shouted, "Stunners are authorized."

Large red laser bolts began to zip by Tails. Tails pulled out his pistol and fired at his pursuers, however something odd happened. Each person that got hit by a bullet shattered into a bunch of tiny green glass cubes. Tails continued to fire until he reached an alley way and turned to get away. As he did however, a bolt of red energy hit him, leaving him unable to move.

"Trespasser is stunned," The helmeted figure said, "Apprehend him and take his weapon."

Tails fought with all his might but was still unable to move. Two animaloids walked up to him and grabbed him by his arms a third took the gun from his hands. Tails was then dragged over to the lead figure with the helmet who eyed him carefully.

"He doesn't have a disc," The helmeted figure said, "Call for a transport, we'll send him to control."

Tails waited, carefully observing his captors. He had never seen any of their uniforms on Mobius. That alone meant he must be on some corner of the planet he had never been on before. Minutes passed, soon Tails paralysis began to where off and he started to struggle.

"Don't bother," One of his captors said, and when Tails kept struggling his captor kneed him in the stomach.

Soon Tails was able to hear a rumbling sound and looked up to what appeared to be a flying square archway descending to the ground. Tails was dragged forward as the top part of the arch lowered to the ground. Tails was dragged though a small door where he was set against a wall where holographic restraints pinned him in place. The arch then rose into the air and began to fly towards the center of the city. Tails could hear the mumbling of a nearby cat prisoner who was mumbling "Not the games, Not the games."

"Excuse m-" Tails began but received a mild shock when he spoke.

"Shut up if you want to live," a nearby prisoner whispered. Tails noticed that it was a hedgehog with half its face missing. Where there should have been exposed tissue there were tiny glass cubes.

Tails remained silent as the archway began to descend and once it landed another figure with a visor entered the ship and began scanning the passengers. Muttering either "Games," or "Reformatting," when it scanned a passenger. The figure said games when scanning Tails and the cat to Tails' right and reformatting for the hedgehog with half his face missing.

Tails was yanked out of the restraints and dragged forward and set on a platform. Before Tails descended into darkness however he saw the cat who had been muttering earlier break away from his captors and jump down an open shaft shouting "NOT THE GAMES, ERASE ME, ERASE ME!"

A thud and shattering sound was heard from the open shaft.

Tails descended down the shaft where another group of guards were waiting for him. They both grabbed him by his arms and dragged him over to a jail cell where they threw him inside.

"Wait," Tails shouted as the guards walked away, "Will you at least tell me where I am."

"You must have an error in your code if you don't know where you are," One of the guards snickered, "Your on the Grid."

Tails expression turned to one of horror as he remembered to line of text he had read in Eggman's base.

1. Set up virtual network that resembles a recognizable world. It will be called the Grid

**Do you like, if so please leave a review.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Games

Disclaimer: (I do not own Sonic the hedgehog.)

Tails waited, and waited. He had checked to walls for ventilation shafts but found none. He checked for weaknesses in wall but also found none. Eventually Tails just sat down in a corner and stared at the wall.

So he was in a virtual world where he would undoubtedly face the tortures that Eggman had created. The only question was could he survive. The guy with the visor had said 'games' when he scanned Tails but what did that mean. Whatever it was it couldn't be good. Eventually another two guards came along and deposited a puma animaloid prisoner in a jail cell. There was a wall between them so Tails couldn't see him once he was in his cell.

"Hey can you hear me," Tails called out.

"Yeah I can," The puma said, "What do you want. I just managed to survive one of the games so I'd like to rest."

"What are the games," Tails asked.

"They must have pulled you from the internet if you don't know what the games are," the puma said, "The games are competitions for the entertainment of the reformatted and those under Error's control in which one of the contestants always dies."

Tails was silent for a moment and was about to ask who this Error person was when he heard snoring from the other jail cell.

Normally at this point Tails would have been forming some sort of strategic plan in his head on how to survive the games but since he didn't know what kind of events were in the games he couldn't really form a plan.

Tails' thoughts were interrupted however when two guards appeared out of the elevator and came over to his cell. The guards opened it walked towards Tails. Tails got in a fighting stance. This proved to be a big mistake as one of the guards simply zapped him with his glowing red staff and paralyzed him.

"Resistance is futile," one of the guards said, "You have no hope of escape so don't even try to fight us. If we find that your too much trouble we'll simply delete you."

Unable to move, Tails could only watch as the guards grabbed him roughly by his arms and dragged him down the hall. Tails caught one last glimpse of the puma in his cell. He had obviously been woken up by the commotion and had a look of pity on his face as he saw Tails being dragged away.

Tails was dragged through several hallways and finally down an elevator and into a small room where he was set on a platform in the middle. The guards then left the room and four beautiful female animaloids, a mongoose, a bat, and two squirrels entered the room.

As the paralysis wore off holographic restraints automatically turned on and pinned Tails in place. The bat and the mongoose came forward and removed Tails' tool belt and shoes respectively. The squirrels then came forward and removed his gloves. The four then backed away and waited as a black substance seeped up from the panel Tails was standing on and coated his entire body except for his head and formed the same suit he had seen on the guards and the puma.

"He's different," Tail's heard the bat say to the mongoose.

The four women then began to place black pieces of armor onto Tails' body until his suit was well fortified. The bat then got a disc with a large hole in the center and placed it in a harness on Tails' back.

"This is a data disc," The bat said, "Everything you do will be recorded on it. It also serves as a weapon in some of the games."

Without another word the women left the room and the guards returned.

"See that wasn't so bad," one of the guards said, "No reason to make such a fuss over it."

Before Tails' could reply the guards grabbed him by his arms, dragged him over to a large elevator, and threw him in. The elevator doors closed and Tails could feel the elevator rising. After about a minute the elevator stopped. When it opened Tails saw a massive stadium with thousands of animaloid programs in its stands. In the center of the stadium and about two hundred feet of the stadium floor was a large tennis court. A small bridge extended from the elevator to the tennis court.

"Proceed to the court or be deleted," A voice said from a speaker in the elevator.

Tails didn't need to be told twice and walked along the bridge to the tennis court. Once he set foot on the tennis court the bridge vanished and a tennis racket materialized in front of him. On the other side of the arena an iguana animaloid was waiting. Tails picked up the racket and walked to the center of his part of the court. Once Tails reached the center a human in a small circular hovercraft appeared near the arena.

"Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to Tennis Terror," The human announcer said, "In this game only one of two programs you see before you will walk away alive. The rules of the game are simple. For each time the ball hits the ground a few slowly expanding holes will appear on that person's section of the court. The first person to fall to their death is the loser. Now let the games begin!"

Tails gulped in fear as he saw a tennis ball appear in the hand of the iguana. Tails had played tennis before and did not consider himself good at it. The iguana served hitting the ball in a graceful arc which Tails was easily able to get to. Tails hit the ball back and the iguana got to it and returned it with a stroke of his racket. Since Tails was on the other side of the court he was not able to get to the ball in time and it hit his side of the court, causing a few small holes to appear and slowly start expanding. The iguana served again and Tails, now fueled by adrenaline, jumped into the air and hit the ball hard. The ball smacked into the iguana's court and caused a few holes to appear. As the ball appeared in Tails' hand he noticed his holes had gotten significantly bigger, he'd have to be careful. Tails served the ball at an angle that the iguana would have to go close to his holes in order to get it. The iguana got close enough to his holes to hit it but at the angle he hit it, it went straight back to Tails who hit it again, this time aiming at the other side of the hole the iguana was standing next two. The Iguana jumped over his now large hole and made it to the other side but was to focused on landing carefully to get the ball in time, causing more holes to appear on his side of the court. Tails served again, this time aiming at the side the iguana had been on the previous serve. The Iguana, seeming to have forgotten that the holes were expanding, miscalculated his jump and only got one foot on the other side. The iguana flailed as he realized his mistake and plummeted to the stadium floor where he shattered into tiny green glass cubes.

"That was too easy," The announcer said into his microphone, "Who says we put this little sucker through another challenge."

Before Tails could say anything the crowd began chanting their approval.

"Very well, very well," The announcer chuckled, "But what should we put him through now."

"Death match!" A voice shouted.

The crowd went silent as all lights turned to a single box in the stands where a group of guards and a lone figure in a red cloak stood. Tails looked at the figure and took in his appearance. He was a fox like Tails but his fur was black with white 1's and 0's printed on them. His eyes were a reddish orange.

"Master Error," The announcer said, "Your wish is our command. Death match it is."

The arena on which Tails was standing slowly began to descend to the stadium floor. As soon as it touched the stadium floor, it vanished. The ground began to rumble and before Tails knew it the ground was covered in sand and massive containers appeared throughout the arena. Seconds later Tails saw the puma and a human being dragged through the sand and placed by him.

"So much for my nap," The Puma said, "I'm Dom by the way."

"I'm Tails," Tails said, "Nice to meet you."

Before Tails could say anything else the announcer spoke up again.

"Ladies and gentle men welcome to Death Match," The announcer boomed, "Here each team will three members and a vast number of weapon containers to choose their weapons from to defeat their enemies. However each container requires a special skill to open ranging from brute force to keen intelligence. The contestants will have to pool their knowledge to help each other survive and get supplies. The rules are simple, kill the other team and you aren't allowed to use your data discs as weapons. Other than that there are no rules. Now BEGIN!"

Tails, Dom, and the human sprinted over to the first container which had a large boulder in front of its entrance. Tails, Dom, and the human all tried to move the boulder but were unsuccessful.

"This is no good," Tails said, "Guys what are your skills."

"I'm an accounting program," The human said, "I don't really have any skills that can help."

"I can hack," Tails said, "Dom what can you do?"

"I'm fast and I can pick lock's," The Puma said, "Does that help."

"Yeah," Tails said, "We need to find a container that requires agility, lock picking, or hacking to open."

The three spread out in search of a container and eventually Tails found one that was locked with a computer terminal. Tails began to hack it and after a few minutes he opened it and grabbed the assault rifle that was inside. Tails ran back through the forest of containers in search of Dom and found him holding a shotgun next to a pile of tiny glass fragments.

"What happened," Tails asked.

"The human got shot," Dom replied, "I managed to shoot the guy who did it though."

"We've got our weapons," Tails said, "Let's go get these guys."

Tails and Dom slowly made their way through the forest of containers. After about thirty seconds of sneaking two programs in the form of pigs jumped down from a container and began to shoot at the Tails and Dom with laser rifles. Tails managed to dodge the shots and Dom was fast so he was able to turn around and shoot one of the pigs with his shotgun. The pig exploded into tiny glass cubes and the other pig turned to flee but was gunned down by Tails. As soon as the pig program shattered. The weapons, sand and containers disappeared.

"And we have a WINNER!" The Announcer shouted, "The Puma and the two tailed guy are victorious again."

The crowd cheered for the two as guards came to bring them back to their cells

"How long do you think it will be till our next game," Tails asked Dom.

"There's no sure way to tell Tails," the puma replied, "You've survived two games and I have survived three so chances are they'll give us a little time to rest since we're now their star players."

Before Tails could ask anything else however the guards grabbed him and Dom and dragged them back to their cells.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Escape

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the hedgehog or any related characters. Also I do not own any elements pertaining to the Tron movies.

**Note: I do not own the character named Havoc he was suggested by the author Brave Kid who is his rightful owner.**

Tails and Dom were dragged back to their cells through a series of hallways and elevators. Tails was trying to memorize his surroundings in case he could escape. Once in his cell Tails decided to get as much information about this place as he could.

"Dom are their microphones or surveillance cameras around here," Tails asked.

"Not that I know of," Dom replied, "They don't need that kind of stuff since it is highly unlikely we'll escape from our cells."

"Good that means they won't overhear our conversation," Tails said. "Does the name Eggman mean anything to you."

"I know that that's the name of the user who built this place," Dom said, "He created Error to rule this place and watch over it while it completed its function."

"Do you even know what this place is meant for," Tails asked.

"I haven't had access to that kind of data," Dom said, "All I know is that Error is making a massive army out of reformatted programs, but I don't know what the army is for since he already rules the grid. Why, do you know what he's planning."

"Eggman plans to bring that army into the user world and conquer it," Tails said. "Error is just a pawn in a much bigger plan."

"That makes sense," Dom said, "I know Error reports to someone else and since he rules all of the Grid he would have no reason to build an army unless it was for somewhere besides the Grid. It's hard to imagine that it's the user world at stake though."

"Believe me," Tails said, "This isn't the first time Error's master has tried to conquer the user world."

"How do you know all this though," Dom asked, "Are you a hacking program?"

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you," Tails said.

"Try me," Dom said.

"I'm from the user world," Tails said.

"Well….I wasn't expecting that," Dom said, "It makes sense though, you didn't even know the name of this place and Error doesn't kidnap programs from the internet anymore. Programs from the internet are the only ones who haven't heard of this place. Plus even a hacking program probably wouldn't have access to the kind of information you just told me about. So yeah, you must be a user. It's nice to know that somebody on the user world is trying to stop this madness."

"I'm not the only one on the user world who hates Eggman," Tails said, "There are a lot of people who despise him."

"I have one question though," Dom said, "If you are a user then how did you end up here on the Grid."

"I was trying to stop Eggman's latest plan when he used a device to send me here," Tails said, "That same device is what he plans on using to bring Error's army into the user world."

"If we get out of here I'll help you take Error and Eggman down," Dom said, "That's a very questionable 'if' though. The security in this place is pretty tight."

"There must be somebody on the Grid who is trying to fight back," Tails said, "Maybe they'll come and help us."

"We can only hope," Dom said, "Now, we should get some sleep before the next game."

"I agree," Tails said lying down in the hopes to catch a few winks.

***later

Tails was woken by two arms grabbing his shoulders and dragging him out of his cell.

"Wake up champ," One of the guards said, "Its game time."

Tails groaned as he blinked sleep out of his eyes and looked over to Dom's cell and saw him still asleep. Why were the guards choosing him for the games and not Dom. Did they know he was user. Maybe it was because he won both of his last games and they were trying to make him play until he died. Either way he hoped this next game would be easy for him.

The guards dragged Tails to the same elevator as last time. After Tails descended in it and it opened he saw a rectangular glass cube inside of which was an arena where two programs were fighting it out with their data discs. Tails must have come late in the fight because he soon saw one of the exhausted contestants get shattered by a direct hit from a data disc. After the program was destroyed a voice spoke from the speakers in Tails' elevator.

"Teleporting prisoner 302 to the arena," It said.

Next thing Tails knew he was in the arena with hawk prisoner at the other end.

"This is disc wars!" The announcer boomed, "It's kill or be killed, BEGIN!"

The hawk at the other side of the arena pulled out his disc and hurled it at Tails, Tails ducked and saw that the disc returned to the hawk like a boomerang. Tails pulled his own disc, hurling it at the hawk who back flipped to avoid it. When Tails' disc returned he thought of a something and waited for the hawk to attack again. Tails waited until the hawk threw its disc and then threw his as well. The two discs hit each other and deflected back and high speed. Tails was anticipating this so he was able to dodge his own disc. The hawk was not to lucky and was sliced through the middle by his own disc before shattering into tiny cubes of glass.

"A fine match ladies and gentlemen," The announcer roared, "But can two tails stand up to his next challenger? Please welcome, the cold, the ruthless, the hunter of escaped prisoners, HAVOC!"

The crowd cheered as a jet black muscular badger entered the arena holding what appeared to be a boomerang made of plasma or laser instead of a data disc.

"Uh oh, this can't be good," Tails said to himself.

Havoc approached slowly seeming to feed off of the fear in Tails' eyes. He studied Tails carefully before speaking.

"You must be a feisty one to make it this far," Havoc said in a deep harsh voice, "However, you're no match against me."

Without another word, Havoc hurled his boomerang at Tails. Tails could barely dodge it in time since it was so fast.

"His boomerang must be programmed to outmatch data discs," Tails said, "This is gonna be hard."

The boomerang had barely returned to Havoc when he launched it again. Tails jumped to avoid getting hit and through his data disc at Havoc. Havoc waited and ducked at the last second with speed that would rival Sonic's. Once his boomerang returned Havoc charged at Tails, swinging his boomerang down like a sword. Tails ducked but was unable to completely make it out in time and got a small cut on his arm. A single drop of blood fell onto the glass floor. Havoc stopped at the sight of the blood and glared at Tails.

"User!" Havoc growled and even though it was barely more than a whisper the crowd heard it went silent.

Havoc grabbed Tails by a shoulder and wheeled him around to see Error approaching on a hover platform.

"Program, identify yourself," Error ordered.

"I'm not a program," Tails replied, "My name is Miles Tails Prower and I am the friend of Sonic the Hedgehog."

The entire crowd booed at the mention of Sonic until Error waved his hand to silence them.

"Lord Eggman told me you were sent here," Error said in a growl that traced up his fox snout, " You must be the one I sensed hacking into our database. I tried to warn you."

"So you were the thing that was speaking in the control room," Tails snarled.

"Yes that was me," Error said scanning Tails with his eyes, "Hmm. Eggman did not tell me what you looked like however. He said that it would be a surprise to find out who you were. Well now that I have you, you will play games nonstop until you die. That is the punishment for being an enemy of lord Eggman, the one who created us."

"Bring his friend the puma up here," Error spoke into a small microphone clipped to his robes, "I want to see them die struggling to formulate a plan together."

"So what are going to do to me now," Tails snarled.

"Oh I have great plans for you," Error said, "First off, it will be light cycle racing. The objective is simple. Get your enemies to collide into the trail of energy that your vehicle leaves behind. Just be mindful of your space. You don't want to box yourself in."

"Permission to be on the opposing team," Havoc asked.

"Permission granted," Error said, "Now let's get going."

Tails was transported to the ground arena where he met Dom. Tails explained what had happened as he, Dom, and two other prisoners were given a set of handle bars.

"What the heck are these," Tails asked examining the handle bars.

Without a word Dom pulled his handlebars apart and a large, dark blue motorcycle like vehicle appeared. Tails did the same to his handle bars and a similar vehicle appeared.

"I've played this game before," Dom said, "Whatever you do don't let the enemy get in front of you. If you do that they'll cut you off and send you into their energy trail."

A countdown commenced as each team got on their vehicles. Unknown to Dom and Tails however someone was watching from a telescope far beyond the arena, some who planned to help them.

A siren blared as the match began. Four against four vehicles headed toward each other trailing energy. Tails carefully calculated the nearest opponents distance from him and made a sharp turn but his opponent was able to turn in time. Tails accelerated but his opponent was equally matched. Tails decided make a gamble, he slowed down in the hopes that his opponent would fall for it. His opponent made a U-turn in a attempt to box Tails off. Right as he was about to pass Tails the yellow vulpine accelerated in front of him, narrowly avoiding a crash but getting his enemy to hit his energy trail.

Tails looked up just in time to see Havoc and another enemy come next to each other with two of Tails' teammates in between their energy trails. Within the confined space. Tails' teammates were unable to avoid the energy trails and their vehicles were bounced between the two trails until they exploded.

Dom meanwhile was taking a long detour, surrounding his opponent in a circle of energy. Eventually the enemy had so little room to move that it crashed into the energy trail.

Tails zoomed off to attempt to get rid of Havoc when two loud explosions rocked the arena and two large sections of the wall exploded. Through the hole came a blue female ferret on a light cycle with missile launchers attached to it.

"Let's go, follow me," The ferret shouted.

Dom and Tails didn't need to be told twice. They both shot to the hole on their light cycles, ignoring the furious shouts from Error in the stands for someone to stop them. Havoc however began to close in on them and Tails hurled his data disc at him. The data disc sliced off a wheel and caused the light cycle to spin out of control and crash. Tails turned around and sped off with Dom out of the arena, not caring if Havoc was dead or not at the moment but only hoping that he and Dom could escape.

Outside the arena was a rocky landscape. Dust spewed from the wheels as the three light cycles sped across the computerized wasteland. Eventually however the light cycles sputtered and died turning back into handle bars and sending their riders into the dirt.

"OW, what was that about," Tails yipped.

"Those vehicles can only work so far away from the main city." The ferret said, "Keep running, I'll call for my ship."

"Your ship?" Tails asked.

"You don't think I go everywhere on a light cycle do you," The ferret said.

"Who are you exactly," Dom asked.

"We can talk later," the ferret said, "Right now we need to dust our tracks and get to safety."

The three kept on running, all the while aware of the alarms and sirens that were going off in the city. A few minutes later, large sting ray shaped ship came into view and descended to the ground. Once it touched down, a walkway lowered.

"Get inside and get to the main guns," the ferret said, "We may need to fight in order to lose them."

Tails and Dom got to the ships gun controls trying to ignore the high tech interior of the ship as they did so. The ship rumbled and ascended into the air before shooting off away from the city. Tails and Dom were practically crushed in their seats by the g force of the acceleration. Off in the distance they could see enemy ships preparing for launch. However they were soon out of sight of the city with no one following them.

"Everything is clear for now," The ferret said over the intercom, "Come one up to the bridge, I imagine you have some questions to ask."

Tails and Dom got out of their seats and headed for the bridge. Both of them not caring who their rescuer was, only that they were away from the games.

**Don't forget to review :)**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Down with the shields

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the hedgehog

Tails and Dom walked up a small set of stairs and down a walkway to the cockpit of the ship. They opened the door to see a room filled with screens and the blue ferret at what was apparently the pilot's seat. The ferret was typing in commands on a touch screen interface.

"I'll be with you in a second," she said.

After a few seconds the ferret close the touch screen and turned around in her chair.

"Now that the ship is on auto pilot I can devote all of my attention to easing your confusion," The ferret said. "My name is Sapphire. Now I imagine you have questions."

"First we'd like to thank you for rescuing us," Tails said, "Who knows whether we would have survived that game if you hadn't gotten us out of there. My name is Tails and this is Dom. As for my question, who exactly are you and how did you know to get us out of there."

"As I told you before my name is Sapphire," Sapphire said, "I am a hacking program created and sent here by GUN to help destroy this place and ruin Eggman's plan. I knew about you two because I listen to the radio broadcasts made by Error. I heard about two programs that had been surviving games and I decided to rescue them so they could help me take down this system. However you do not have to help me if you don't want to."

"We'll be glad to help you take down Error and Eggman," Dom said, "However there is something you should know about Tails."

"Yeah, you may not now this but I'm a user, not a program," Tails said.

"A User," Sapphire said with a raised eyebrow, "You should be able to survive longer than we can in a mission."

"Really, how come," Tails asked confused.

"Users have the ability to heal," Sapphire said gesturing toward the healing wound on Tails shoulder from his disc fight with Havoc, "Programs can only be repaired if a user replaces damaged or deleted code via programming."

"If I have the ability to increase yours and Dom's safety I will make the most of it," Tails said.

"So what do we do now," Dom said.

"We should rest for a little while," Sapphire said, "There are bunks on the lower section of this ship. Once you are rested we have work we need to do."

Tails and Dom nodded as the ship began to descend and land. The landscape around them was made of one vast wasteland composed of jet black rocks, dust, and sand.

"Where are we?" Tails asked.

"Far outside the reaches of the central city," Sapphire replied, "It's a place called the Outer Grid."

"What would happen if we kept on going in that direction," Tails asked, "What would we reach?"

"If we kept on going in that direction we eventually reach the central city again," Sapphire said, "From what I understand this system is patterned after the user world and is a planet like sphere. Now, if you guys don't have any other questions you really should get some rest."

Tails and Dom exited the room and headed for the sleeping area of the lower deck. Sapphire stretched back in her chair to catch a quick nap.

Tails awoke to a finger poking him in the side. Tails opened his eyes to see Sapphire standing next to his bunk.

"Five more minutes," Tails groaned.

"It's been 12 hours," Sapphire said, "You guys must have been tired from those games."

Tails bolted upright and smacked his head into the top bunk.

"12 hours!" Tails said massaging the lump on his head, "I never sleep that long."

"Well you sure did this time," Sapphire said, "I still haven't managed to get Dom up."

Tails however wasn't listening. He hadn't really gotten a good look at Sapphire since his rescue due to tiredness. However now that he looked at her he was taken aback by how beautiful she was. She thin, about as tall as Tails, and wore a blue body suit as opposed to black like almost everybody else on the grid. However unlike the black boots Tails was wearing Sapphire's boot were high heeled and complimented the gentle curvature of her body. Tails also noticed that her left ear was double pierced with earrings made out of a blue metal which matched the color of her fur. Her eyes were a light blue and looked almost silver. On her face was eye shadow and blue lipstick. Everything about her attire seemed to be blue.

However Sapphire soon noticed that Tails was staring and started to blush. Tails also realized what he was doing and turned a shade of red.

"Uhh…Um…why don't we get Dom up," Tails said nervously.

"Yeah…let's do that" Sapphire replied.

The two of them simultaneously poked Dom who lifted his head and looked over at Tails and Sapphire. He immediately smirked when he noticed how both of them were still blushing slightly.

"What have you two been up two," Dom said, "You're both redder than tomatoes."

This caused Tails and Sapphire to blush even more and both of them began to away nervously. Luckily for them Dom didn't say anything else and hopped out of bed.

"So what's the first step to taking this system down," Dom said.

"In order to take down this system we need to destroy a number of reformatting plants as well as free some of the imprisoned programs," Sapphire said eager to get back to business, "However my recent data has told me that an energy shield has been put up over the city at the center of the grid so we can't get back in. In order to get back inside the city we will need to destroy the shield's generator."

"Let's go destroy it then," Tails said.

"I wish it were that simple," Sapphire replied, "The shield generator is guarded. A direct ground attack will be suicide. I'll bombard the generator and draw as many of the guards out as I can. While I do that you two will have to go in and fight your way through any remaining guards to the generator. Once you get to it, destroy it."

"Let's do this then," Dom said.

"I'll fly us there then," Sapphire said, "You two get to the turret controls in case we come under fire."

Tails and Dom nodded and headed to their stations.

Not far from the Grid capital city was a lone tower like building with a single large satellite dish pointing toward the capital. From the outside one could see guards patrolling the walkways. No one would guess it was a shield generator for the city.

Over the horizon a sting ray shaped craft approached the tower once it was within a mile missiles began to shoot from it and explode on contact with the walls of the building. The guards scattered as pieces of debris fell onto the walkways. The ship hovered a little at the Roof as Tails and Dom jumped out onto a walkway. The ship then departed and began shooting down guards who were trying to get to anti aircraft guns.

Tails and Dom went over to some dead guards and picked up their laser staffs.

"Let's do this," Tails said cracking his knuckles, "We need to get to the bottom floor where the generator is. Set your staff to 'kill'."

Dom nodded as he and Tails descended from the roof to the top floor.

Floor 5:

Tails and Dom walked down a flight of stairs. Carefully aiming their laser staffs in case of enemies. On this floor there was one guard, the others must have tried to get to the anti aircraft guns at the base of the tower. The guard wasn't even able call for help before Tails and Dom shot him. The two then went down the next stairway and descended to the next floor.

Floor 4:

Tails and Dom crept down the flight of stairs. This time aware of the voices within the room.

"I think there are about three guards in there," Tails whispered.

"Jump out ambush them?" Dom suggested.

Tails nodded.

"On three," Dom said, "One…two…THREE!"

Tails and Dom jumped out from behind their hiding spot and began to fire like crazy. As Tails predicted there were only three guards in the room. Two were immediately shot down. The third was able to hit a panic button before going down.

"INTRUDER ALERT," a alarm voice screamed, "FLOOR 4, INTRUDER ALERT, FLOOR 4."

The guards from floor three began to pour up the stairs. Tails and Dom ducked behind fallen debris and fired with their laser staffs from behind their cover. Guard after guard was shattered into glass cubes as they sprinted up the stairs and came directly into the line of fire. After ten guards had been shattered they stopped coming up the stairs and the remaining three managed to get to cover instead of being destroyed. The guards then began shooting out from behind cover as well.

"Tails were getting pinned down we need to think of something fast," Dom yelled over the scream of lasers.

"Give me covering fire and I'll destroy their cover," Tails replied as a laser bolt passed close enough to singe his fur.

Dom fired as fast as his laser staff would allow. While he did so Tails pulled out his data disc and through it in a wide arc. The disc sliced through the debris the guards were behind and turned their cover into ash. The guards were then exposed to the laser fire of Tails and Dom. However as the guards began to fall to the laser fire of their enemies, one of them managed to hit Tails' laser staff, shattering it into pieces. Tails pulled out his data disc again and cleaved the guard responsible in half with a well aimed throw.

"Tails you okay," Dom asked concerned, "You're not hit are you."

"No they just got my laser staff," Tails replied, "I'm fine, let's get to next floor."

Tails and Dom went through floor three without meeting any guards since they had all been killed on the floor above. Floor two was also empty since its guards had tried to get to the anti aircraft turrets.

Floor 1:

Tails and Dom crept carefully down the stairs. The final floor was likely to have a lot of guards on it. Tails and Dom rounded the corner and saw a dozen guards waiting for them and several others manning anti aircraft turrets. In the corner of the room was a furnace like device that was the core reactor for the shield generator. Tails threw his disc and Dom fired his staff. However there were way too many guards for them to take down. In the onslaught Dom had his left leg and right arm shot off by powerful laser blasts. Tails grabbed Dom and pulled him to safety as the guards began to advance.

"Sapphire, Dom's hurt!" Tails shouted into the radio on his wrist, "We need you to hit this floor with a missile."

"Roger that," Sapphire replied, "Get to cover."

Tails ducked as a missile crashed into the room and exploded, killing all of the guards. Once the smoke cleared Tails got up and hit the core reactor with his data disc. The reactor turned red and began to rumble.

"Get out of here," Dom said wincing in pain, "If you try to save me you'll be here when the reactor goes off."

"I'm not leaving you here," Tails said, then speaking into the radio on his wrist, "Sapphire land the ship and help me get Dom onto it, he can't walk."

"Okay I'll be right there," Sapphire said.

Tails began to drag Dom out of the building. Halfway out Sapphire came through the entrance and helped him load Dom onto the ship. With all three of them on board, Sapphire commenced an emergency take off. Just as they got out of range of the shield generator, it exploded.

Tails and Sapphire were in the medical wing of the ship examining Dom on an operating table.

"This really hurts," Dom said, "Can you repair me."

Tails pressed a button on Dom's data disc and a holographic keyboard and display appeared.

"It should be simple enough," Tails said as he typed into the data disc, "All I have to do is repair your code."

"Is there anything I can do to help," Sapphire asked in a concerned tone.

"Not at the moment," Tails said as he continued typing, "Your designed to hack programs not repair them. Based on my programming experience, this should be an easy fix."

Tails continued typing. After a few minutes he stopped and hit the enter key. Dom's limbs began to glow as small glass cubes began to appear next to it and attach themselves to the stumps where his limbs were. More and more cubes attached themselves until a rough shape of the missing body piece was form. Then the cubes glowed even brighter as they transformed into Dom's new limbs.

"That should do it," Tails said handing Dom his data disc, "Told you it would be easy."

"Thanks Tails," Dom said, then turning to Sapphire, "What's the next step in our plan."

"Our next step is to destroy the reformatting plants in the city," Sapphire said, "However we should get some sleep first."

"There isn't any day/night cycle here is there?" Tails asked.

"Unlike the user world the Grid does not have a Sun," Sapphire said, "So yep, it's always dark here. We sleep when we're tired and get up when we're rested. You are probably hungry as well. Even though we don't eat food on the Grid we do have means of sustenance. I'll take us to a power line tomorrow."

Sapphire left the room while Tails took in what he had just heard.

"What's a power line," Tails asked Dom.

"I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for you," Dom said, "You'll see after we've rested a bit."

Tails and Dom went back to their bunks. Dom fell asleep immediately. Tails tossed and turned for a while. It was different living inside a computer. Tails wanted to get home badly. However he knew he would have to free this place first, and that could take a while. And what of his friends. He didn't want to leave them. Maybe he could get them into his world. There was no way to now if that would work or not but it might.

Tails closed his eyes and waited for sleep to arrive


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4: Three Pronged Strike

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog

Tails woke, thankfully of his own accord and not from a finger poking him in the side. Tails crawled out of bed and looked at the top bunk. Dom was still asleep so Tails crept quietly out of the room and began to walk around aimlessly waiting for his friends to get up. Tails didn't have to wait long because Sapphire soon came out of the bridge and met with Tails who was looking out the window.

"Are you homesick?" Sapphire asked.

"A little bit," Tails replied still staring out the window, "Things are so different here that I can't help but feel a little homesick."

"We'll get you back to your world," Sapphire said reassuringly, "Don't you worry."

"Sapphire?" Tails asked, "What will you do when you're done with your mission."

"I imagine I'll be reused for some other purpose," Sapphire said, "Why do you ask."

"Well I was wondering?" Tail asked timidly, "Would you and Dom like to come to the user world with me. You're really good friends and I'd hate to lose you."

Sapphire's jaw dropped.

"You're inviting me and Dom to the user world!" Sapphire gaped.

"You two would be free to choose your own destiny there," Tails said now looking at Sapphire instead of out the window, "If you'd rather stay here I won't make you come."

"Tails I'd love to come to the user world," Sapphire said overjoyed, "I'm certain Dom would as well. You do realize your practically asking me to come to the home of the gods."

"Well, users aren't gods by any means," Tails said, "We have many faults. But you and Dom would be happy there, that much I do know."

Sapphire hugged Tails and Tails began to blush heavily.

"I'm so excited," Sapphire squealed, "Lets wake up Dom and you can tell him as well."

Tails walked over to Dom's bed while Sapphire skipped alongside him as though she was in Heaven.

"Dom wake up you'll never believe what Tails promised," Sapphire said.

"Let me sleep," Dom whined.

"Dom!" Sapphire said crossly at Dom's behavior, "Tails is offering to let us live in the user world with him."

Dom bolted upright in bed and gawked at Tails.

"You'd do that for us," Dom gaped.

"Of course," Tails said, "You're my friends."

Dom punched a fist into the air.

"This is awesome," Dom said with a wide grin, "Keep in mind we need to free this system first though."

"Speaking of which, we should probably head to the power line," Sapphire said, "Once we're their I'll explain our plan."

"Agreed," Dom said still smiling as Sapphire headed to the cockpit, Tails was still wondering what a power line was.

Tails stared in wonder as the ship landed next to a river filled with glowing a glowing blue liquid.

"That, my friend," Dom said ruffling Tails' hair, "Is a power line. Your gonna find out why it's so special to us programs."

"But I'm a user," Tails said, "Will whatever it does work on me."

"Don't worry," Dom said, "I'm no expert in users but I know that as long as you are in our world it will work on you."

Tails and Dom heard a clanking and turned around to see Sapphire getting three tall glasses out of a cupboard.

"I assume we drink this stuff," Tails said noticing the glasses.

"Yep," Sapphire replied, "Why did you think we had to swim in it?"

Tails shrugged and followed to his friends out of the ship and over to the river. Sapphire handed Dom and Tails a glass.

"Fill them up and drink," She said.

Tails, being a little cautious, decided to see what happened to his friends first before drinking the blue stuff. Tails, Dom, and Sapphire walked over to the river and filled their glasses. Sapphire inhaled some of the vapor coming out of the liquid and closed her eyes as if she were savoring the moment. Tails looked at his drink wondering if it was safe to drink. He then saw Dom and Sapphire chugged their drinks. It didn't look like it hurt them so Tails took a sip of his own.

As soon as he took that sip the rest of the drink was soon chugged. The only way to describe what Tails experienced was that it was pure goodness. Almost as if the drink was a highly potent drug. Not to be philosophical, but the taste of the drink cannot be described, only experienced. It is unlike anything a human or animaloid can experience in the user world. It can only be found in a programmed world. The drink is a simple program that is meant to stimulate the reward centers of the brain of human, animaloid, and program alike without any drawbacks.

"What is this stuff!" Tails said amazed as he stared at the river.

"You like it," Sapphire said, "It is what keeps us programs going. It obviously has the same effect on users."

"Why would you ever want to stop drinking this," Tails asked.

"Well you can't drink it forever," Dom said, "It starts to lose its effect after the first couple drinks. However it tastes and feels just as good when you wait a while and come back for another drink. I guess the users programmed it to do that so we would actually get work done instead of drinking this nonstop."

The three continued to drink in silence for a little while longer. Once they were done they went back inside the ship.

"What exactly is a reformatting plant?" Tails asked. He had been wanting to ask this for a while.

"A reformatting plant is a place where programs are reformatted to become the loyal soldiers of Error," Sapphire replied, "Once a program is reformatted, they are completely loyal to Error and obey any orders without question."

"Do you know how many there are?" Dom asked.

"Based on the communications I have heard there are three," Sapphire replied, "This means we are going to have to split up and take them out simultaneously. If we stay together and attack them one at a time then the others will go into lockdown and be impossible to break into. However, to ensure your safety I have these."

Sapphire pulled out three small spheres the size of marbles. She handed one to Tails, one to Dom, and kept one for herself.

"These are something GUN gave to me," She said, "They are teleportation programs that will allow you to teleport back to the ship once you have destroyed the power drive for each plant."

"How are we supposed to get into the plants without being spotted?" Tails asked.

"Follow me and I'll show you," Sapphire smirked.

Tails and Dom followed the ferret out of the ship and over to what appeared to be a sewer hatch.

"This is the entrance to a network of tunnels that leads to the reformatting plants," Sapphire said, "Follow me and I'll show you what to follow."

The three descended the pipe into a single tunnel wide enough to walk through. After following Sapphire for a few minutes they came a place where the one tunnel split into three.

"Follow the tunnel and it will lead you straight to you target," Sapphire said, "Whatever you do don't get curious and try to explore other areas of the tunnel or you will get lost and we can't have that since your teleportation programs only work once."

Dom and Tails nodded. The trio then split up into their chosen tunnels.

Tails walked down his tunnel in silence. As he progressed he became aware of factory sounds coming from above him. After a few more minutes of walking the tunnel ended and Tails looked up to see a sewer hatch. Tails climbed up the ladder and listened. Tails heard screaming and whimpering along with clanging as hissing sounds. This must be where the programs were being reformatted.

"Last batch 78 percent of programs survived reformatting," Tails heard someone say.

"Continue with the next batch," someone else said.

Tails began to form a plan in his mind. If he could stealthily take out whoever was up there he would look at the map for where the air ducts led to the power drive and then use them to get to the target.

Tails counted to three and sprang up from the tunnel into a small room where two hedgehog guards were manning the controls to the plant. Tails threw his disc at the first guard. The disc decapitated him, bounced off the wall and cleaved the other guard in half before returning to Tails. Tails looked at the map of the plant and saw where the power drive was before looking around the room for a ventilation shaft. Tail found one in the corner of the room next to the door and crawled through it. After several seconds of crawling Tails came above another control room.

"Control room 3 respond," A guard said, "I repeat control room 3 can you hear us."

No response.

"Send some guards to the control room." The guard said, "I want to know why they aren't responding."

Tails snickered and kept on moving. Control room three was where he had entered and destroyed those guards. They would be in for quite a shock when the other guards entered the room.

Tails continued crawling until he was above the power drive room. Tails carefully opened the vent and dropped down. As soon as he hit the ground he heard a whizzing sound and barely dodged a flying laser boomerang. Tails back flipped and spun around to see his old nemesis Havoc standing thirty feet away from him.

"Well well well," Havoc said as his boomerang returned to him, "The two tailed freak returns for another round."

"Don't call me a freak," Tails hissed, his eyes blazing at the comment.

"Or what," Havoc said, "You wanna fight. I knew I would find someone here when control room three went silent. Never thought it would be you though."

"If you want to fight me then bring it on," Tails snarled.

"With pleasure," Havoc said.

Tails charged at Havoc and swung his data disc down at him like an ax. Havoc lazily blocked Tails with his data disc and swung at Tails with his laser boomerang. Tails was expecting this and at the last second he ducked and sliced off Havoc's extended arm.

"AHHHHHH!," Havoc screamed as laser boomerang fell to the floor. Tails grabbed the boomerang and through it at Havoc. The boomerang imbedded itself in Havoc but did not shatter him. Tails stared in confusion as Havoc pulled the boomerang out of himself and smirked.

"Nice moves kid," The badger smirked, "Too bad my boomerang can't hurt me, and now that you've returned it to me, I can escape."

Tails growled in anger as Havoc pressed a button on his boomerang and vanished. Tails scooped up some of the glass shards from Havoc's arm and put them in his pocket.

"A souvenir of another victory," Tails smirked.

Tails then turned around and hurled his disc at the cylinder shaped power drive. The disc sliced a massive chunk off before returning to Tails. The power drive then began to rumble.

"Better get out of here," Tails said before activating his teleportation programs and warping back to Sapphire's ship.

Sapphire listened carefully through the hatch. No sound what so ever. Sapphire opened the hatch and peeked through the opening. No one was there. Sapphire climbed out and looked around the room. Her jaw dropped and her eyes began to sparkle in joy when she saw the room was full of weapons. She had obviously hit the armory. Gatling guns, assault rifles, missile launchers, shotguns, grenade launchers, every kind of gun was there. Sapphire pouted a little bit when she realized she would only be able to carry so much, so she strapped a shotgun and assault rifle to her back, grabbed a belt full of grenades and a portable heavy machine gun. She then looked at a map on the room and saw that the power drive for the plant was at the other side of the plant. No matter though, she was the one with the mother load of weapons.

Sapphire exited the room and was immediately spotted by guards who were immediately turned to Swiss cheese by her heavy machine gun. Sapphire casually walked down a hall mowing down any guards who got in her way and since the guards were programmed to give their lives for Error, a LOT got in the way.

Halfway to the power drive room Sapphire ran into a large mech like robot and began to shoot at it. However she had been using her heavy machine gun so much that the barrel soon overheated. Sapphire threw down the machine gun and grabbed a grenade in each hand while ducking for cover to avoid oncoming bullets. She pulled the pins out with her teeth and jumped out of her hiding spot. She sprinted closer to the robot and threw the grenades into the knee joints of the robot. The robots legs exploded as Sapphire ducked for cover once again. The robot toppled over and shattered into a massive pile of glass cubes.

Sapphire pulled out her shot gun and assault rifle wielding one in each hand and began to sprint toward the power drive room. A few armed guards were near the door but they were unable to react in time as bullets and buckshot destroyed them. Sapphire entered the room and opened fire on the power drive and continued firing until she was completely out of ammo. The power drive began to rumble and shake violently as it got ready to explode. However before it could do so. Sapphire had already teleported to safety.

Dom listened carefully at the hatch and was disturbed by the amount of chatter that was up there. Dom carefully and slowly peaked up and saw a bunch of screens with faces on them and one guard sitting in front of the screens.

"_He must be the head of the plant_," Dom thought to himself.

Dom leapt up and sliced the programs body in half with one throw of his data disc. Unfortunately for him everyone on the screens saw it and began shouting for guards to get to the central control room. Dom looked around worriedly for a place to hide and saw something convenient, a button that said 'Self destruct.'

Dom just stared at the button.

"This is so easy it almost isn't worth doing," Dom said.

Dom heard guards' footsteps pounding toward the door. Dom hit the self destruct button and ripped out the cancelation button that was next to it.

"That ought to freak them out," Dom said as he teleported out of the building.

The guards broke in just as the self destruct timer hit zero.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: System Restart

Back on Sapphire's ship, Tails, Sapphire, and Dom had appeared.

"Man I barely had to do anything to take that plant down," Dom said, "I hope our next plan will involve more action."

"Don't worry it will," Sapphire said. "We are now ready to start a rebellion against Error."

"Uh I don't think we'll be able to stop Error by ourselves," Tails pointed out.

"I have a plan for that," Sapphire said, "We will use that same network of tunnels to get to the system's core and force the system to restart. When that happens the power for the prisons will shut down and allow all captured programs to escape. They will try to take Error down themselves and we will help them."

"We shouldn't stop now then," Tails said, "It might be good to attack them while they are still figuring out what happened to the reformatting plants."

Sapphire was about to respond when an alarm on the ship started beeping.

"Uh what is that?" Tails asked.

Sapphire did not reply but went over to a window and looked out of it.

"They found us," She said, "Get to the ships guns NOW!"

"They must have sensed a disturbance in the power line that we drank from," Dom growled.

Tails and Dom raced over to the control seats for the ships guns and buckled themselves in while Sapphire sprinted to the cockpit. Tails felt himself get heavy as the ship took off. Once they wer e in the air Tails looked out the window of his pod and saw a large fleet of ship approaching.

"OPEN FIRE!" Sapphire shouted.

Tails and Dom began to fire the ships guns. Lasers zipped from the guns to the enemy who managed to dodge most of them. The enemy ships began to return fire and Sapphire had to turn hard to avoid the shots. This helped keep them alive but it made it much harder for Tails and Dom to shoot. Tails looked over to the window and saw they were entering a mountain range. Sapphire began to weave the ship back and force through mountains and managed to get some of the following ships to crash. Other enemy ships simply flew up over the mountains and began to fire from above.

"Sapphire, their gaining on us!" Tails shouted.

"I know I'm doing my best!" Sapphire shouted as a missile whizzed past the ship, missing by a few feet.

Tails fired and fired but no matter how many ships he shot down they still kept coming. Suddenly an idea came to Tails.

"Dom keep shooting I'm going up to the bridge," Tails said.

"What on earth for!" Dom shouted over the roar of laser fire.

"I may have a way to get us out of this," Tails said and took off to the bridge without another word.

Tails burst through the door of the bridge and fell over as Sapphire made a another sharp turn.

"Tails what in God's name are you doing up here!" Sapphire shouted as the ship turned again.

"I know how to program," Tails said, "Get me an interface and I'll programs this ship to be invisible."

Sapphire looked dumbstruck for a second before throwing Tails a rectangular touch screen interface. Tails began to type rapidly and a series of lasers hit the ship's hull.

"Hurry up Tails we won't last much longer," Sapphire said worriedly.

"DONE!" Tails said.

From the inside of the ship it looked like nothing had happened, but from the outside no one was able to see it. This was exactly what Tails had planned, establish a cloaking field that made the ship invisible only from the outside so that the pilot could still see their controls on the inside.

Outside the enemy ships began to slow down and their turrets swiveled in confusion.

"That was close," Sapphire said as she turned the ship back towards the central city of the Grid.

The door of the room opened and Dom walked in.

"Whatever you did Tails it saved us," Dom said, "Now let's go reboot the core."

"Roger that," Sapphire said, "I'll land us near a tunnel entrance so we can get to it without being seen."

***at the tunnel entrance

"Alright listen carefully," Sapphire said holding a map of the city, "The core will be heavily guarded especially after destroying the reformatting plants. We're going to have to be really careful getting in there."

"Could have guessed as much," Dom replied, "Is there anything we can use to our advantage."

"I can program something if we get surrounded," Tails said, "But doing so would be risky since I wouldn't be able to fight while programming. Other than that it looks like the odds are stacked in their favor."

"Couldn't you program us to be invisible like you did with the ship?" Dom asked.

"Doing so was risky enough on the ship," Tails said, "The ship had a lot of digital energy so it could hold out for a while. We however, are much smaller than the ship and do not hold a lot of digital energy. If I tried to attach an external program like that to us it would delete us once it used up our energy and that wouldn't take that long."

"What about programming our suits to look like guards," Sapphire asked suddenly, "How much energy would that take."

Tails thought for a second before responding, calling upon his programming experience to figure out an answer.

"Technically that would work," Tails said, "Changing our suits would only cost a little bit of energy to change and would not constantly drain us like the invisibility program. Yeah, that would work but we would have to be careful and act casually. If we were caught hacking or doing something that we weren't supposed to then it would arouse suspicion."

"Alright then," Sapphire said, "If it works, program our suits to look like guards."

Tails took Sapphire's and Dom's data discs as well as his own and began typing into them. After half a minute all three of their suits changed to the black and red lined clothes that the guards wore.

"This is interesting," Dom said looking at his own suit, "I know resemble the programs I hate."

"Let's get going," Sapphire said, "We need to restart this system. There are a lot of programs that have been held captive for too long."

The three walked together through the network of tunnels that ran under the central city, Sapphire occasionally checked her map to make sure they were going the right way. After half an hour of walking they came to a hatch that led to the core complex.

Sapphire opened the lid to the hatch slowly, making sure no one would suddenly see a bunch of guards come out of the ground. After making sure the room was clear, Sapphire climbed out and motioned for Dom and Tails to follow. The three silently made their way out of the room and Sapphire looked at a map of the complex on the wall.

"Okay follow me guys," Sapphire said after she saw where the core was.

The three walked silently down a net work of hallways and eventually came to a door that said 'core room.' However there were two guards in front of it.

"How are we going to deal with them," Tails said.

"We can't outright attack them or we'll have every guard in the building breathing down our necks," Dom said.

"I have an idea," Sapphire said, "You two stay here and be ready run in case this doesn't work."

Sapphire walked slowly up to the guards in a way that showed off her natural beauty. The guards wolf whistled as she got closer to them, clearly distracted. When Sapphire was right up next to the guards she attacked. Quick as a flash, she grabbed their heads and smashed them together, knocking both of them unconscious. Sapphire signaled for Tails and Dom to come help her and the two of them dragged the unconscious guards into a nearby closet. The three of them went into the core room and came face to face with a large tall glowing blue cube. Unfortunately for them they were not the only ones in the room. Three human guards were also in the room.

"What is your reason for being here," One of the guards asked, obviously fooled by their fake uniforms

"We're here to check on the core," Tails lied.

"The core is running at optimum capacity," The guard said, "Now please leave the room unless you have authorization to stay here."

"Hold on," One of the guards said as he got a good look at Tails, "I know that fox, he was in the games. They aren't guards, Their enemies!"

"So much for doing the easy way," Tails said as he pulled out his disc and quickly typed something into its holographic interface.

Three large plumes of green smoke shot out of Tails' disc and hit the guards. Each of the guards eyes gained a slightly glazed look upon them.

"What did you do too them?" Dom asked.

"I infected them with a virus," Tails replied, "They will now obey my every command."

"Go outside and guard the door," Tails said and the infected guards did so.

"Once we start the reboot every guard in this station will try to get over here to stop the reboot," Tails said, "The infected guards outside will slow them down for a little bit but not by much. If we can hold off long enough for the system to restart we should be good."

"We should get started then," Sapphire said, "Tails you have the most programming experience so you should start the reboot."

Tails nodded and walked over to the cube that was the systems core. When Tails was a few feet away from the core, a holographic keyboard and screen appeared in the air next to the cube. Tails walked over to the holographic display and typed in the following commands.

halt system prog/terminal inquire

inquire=system restart

An option that came up saying 'system restart? Y/N'

Tails hit the 'Y' button and after a few second the core began to rumble slightly.

"System restart in five minutes," A computerized voice rang out, "All programs get ready for shutdown."

"And the system blows our cover," Sapphire said rolling her eyes, "Now I see why you said the guards would be coming after us."

"Yeah, I knew it would do something like that," Tails said, "If I knew how to restart without the alert I would have. Doesn't matter now though, all we can do is get ready."

The three pulled out their data discs and waited. After a few seconds they could hear footsteps as guards sprinted down the outside hallway to their position. They then heard fighting as the infected guards Tails had instructed to guard the door did their best to fight of the horde of oncoming guards. Eventually however the fighting stopped and ten uninfected guards entered the room.

"Delete all three of them," The lead guard said, "Stop the restart at all costs."

Tails ducked as a disc went whizzing over his head. He retaliated by throwing his disc at an angle so it would sweep through most of the guards before returning to him. Although most of the guards dodged the attack, three were not fast enough and shattered as the disc cut through them.

Tails grabbed his disc and looked up at the timer to the reboot. It was at two minutes, just a little longer and the system would restart. Tails was so focused on the clock that he was barely able to duck in time as another disc shot passed him. Tails round house kicked the disc out of the air just as it passed him, causing it to be imbedded in a wall. Tails then wheeled around and hurled his disc at the guard who through it at him, decapitating him before his body shattered into glass. Sapphire and Dom both threw their discs in sync with Tails, destroying the two remaining guards just as the timer for the restart hit zero.

Immediately all lights in the room began to fade and Tails, Sapphire and Dom began to float in the air as the system's gravity shut down. All the walls and ceiling began to fade and disappear. Seconds later the lights shut off all together and the three found themselves floating in darkness.

"How long do you think the system plans to leave us like this," Dom said.

"Give it a minute and everything will start up again," Tails said.

Sure enough, 60 seconds later the wall rematerialized and the lights came back on. Seconds later, Tails, Dom, and Sapphire hit the ground as the gravity returned.

"System now back online and fully functional," The same digitalized voice from earlier said, "Grid protocol reestablished, all barriers are now down."

"What's the Grid Protocol." Tails asked.

"It's what the system calls it when all prison barriers go down after a reboot," Sapphire said, "The only way to get them back online is to turn the barrier generator back online."

"So how long until the prisoners become trapped again," Tails asked.

"Never," Sapphire said, "The barrier generator can only be turned on by a user. And since you are on our side, I doubt you'll want to turn it back on."

"Interesting," Tails said, "We should probably make our way to Error's palace, I imagine he'll be expecting us."

Dom and Sapphire nodded with victorious looks on their faces. Soon, they would be free.

**Join us next time for the story finale as the system is liberated and Tails is finally able to return home.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Liberation and Freedom

Disclaimer: I do not own sonic the hedgehog

Tails, Dom, and Sapphire made their way out of the core room and onto the streets of the Grid. The place they walked out onto resembled a war zone. Everywhere prisoners and guards were fighting. Although Error's guards had more than just data discs for weapons, the superior numbers of the prisoners was proving to be the determining factor.

Several guards spotted Tails, Dom, and Sapphire and began to fire lasers from their staffs.

"I suggest we split up and meet at Error's palace," Tails said.

Dom and Sapphire nodded before bolting in different directions. Tails ducked in an alley and began typing code into his data disc. Seconds later he finished typing, sprinted out of the alleyway and hurled his disc high above the fighting. Beams of code shot down and implanted themselves in the freed prisoners. Once hit by a beam of code, a large laser staff like those used by the guards would materialize in the hands of the prisoners. With this happening to every prisoner hit by a beam, the prisoners began to mow down the guards at a much faster rate.

After a few minutes, the guards' numbers began to dwindle and the remaining servants of Error started to retreat. Tails saw this and climbed on top of a pile of debris so all of the prisoners could hear him.

"Don't let them get away!" Tails shouted, "They'll just reinforce Error's palace. Surround them and take them down."

The prisoners seemed to understand what Tails was talking about and began to follow his orders. The remaining guards were soon surrounded and destroyed. Once the area was secured, the prisoners turned to greet their mysterious advisor.

"That was good thinking kid," A gecko program said as Tails approached the crowd of programs, "We're you the one who gave us the weapons?"

"Yes, that was me," Tails said

The gecko looked at Tails closely as if he knew him from somewhere but was trying to recall the time and place.

"You wouldn't by any chance be one of the guys who escaped from the games, would you?" The gecko asked.

"Yes that was also me," Tails said, "If you are going to try to congratulate me or something it should wait till later. Right now taking Error down is top priority."

The gecko nodded and the prisoners began to head towards Errors place.

*** meanwhile

While Tails was helping his group of prisoners, Sapphire had rounded up ten prisoners to help her. Their objective was to get to the Grid's armory and get some better weapons. Using the network of tunnels under the city, they soon made their way to the armory.

"Okay follow me this way," Sapphire said, "This place is one of the few that will still be guarded so get your discs ready."

Sapphire's comrades did so. Then, following her lead, they crept along the tunnel until they reached a hatch. The group then listened for chatter above the hatch and heard none. Slowly, Sapphire opened the hatch and looked around the room it led into. Sapphire didn't see anyone so she signaled her followers to climb up out of the tunnels. As soon as her comrades were out of the hatch, the door to the room burst open and guards began to pour in.

"IT'S A TRAP!" Sapphire shouted, "GET TO COVER!"

Sapphire's comrades ducked behind several large boxes that were in the room. The ensuing fight began as Sapphire's comrades hurled their data discs at the guards who fired back with their laser staffs. Sapphire herself also joined the fight, hurling her disc in a wide arc to attempt to kill several of the guards. The guards in question returned fire and shattered part of the box that Sapphire was hiding behind. Several assault rifles and lots of ammo fell out of the hole in the crate and Sapphire wasted no time in picking one up and unloading it on the guards. The guards in question were unable to move out of the way in time and the surviving guards started lose their balance on the glass cubes from the other dead guards. This caused a domino effect in which all of the guards fell to the ground before being destroyed by data discs and bullets alike.

"Take as many weapons as you can carry," Sapphire said, "Once you have what you can carry head back out to the streets and start distributing weapons. Kill any guards that get in your way."

Sapphire made her way out of the room with an assault rifle and two pistols, her comrades were following her with crates of weapons. She then headed out of the building, encountering a few guards who she easily put down with well placed bullets. Once out on the street, she helped her friends distribute weapons among the other programs.

"I just got a radio message from one of my friends," a human program said to her, "It sounds like the fighting is calming down in the southern area of the city but our friends need reinforcements on the western front."

"Then we'll head there with these weapons and help them out," Sapphire said.

The human nodded and signaled for the rest of his friends to follow him.

***10 minutes later

Sapphire and her comrades reached the western front to meet a grisly scene. Most of the programs had been reduced to fragments and the remaining programs were being pinned down. When they were close enough to the battle Sapphire signaled her comrades to open fire. Error's guards immediately retreated to behind piles of rubble and began to shoot from cover.

Sapphire picked up a rocket launcher and fired it at the enemies' cover. The missile screamed toward its target and exploded on impact. Although this did get rid of the rubble that the enemy was using as cover it also left a trail of smoke leading straight to Sapphire and drew enemy fire toward her. Sapphire ducked as lasers flew over her head and reloaded the rocket launcher. Her comrades gave her covering fire while she crawled over to a different position and fired again. This time, with no cover to protect them, the remaining guards were blown to pieces as the rocket slammed into the ground and exploded less than three feet from them. Sapphire's comrades moved in and swept the area for any remaining guards and found none.

"Status report," Sapphire said, "What's the fighting like around other areas of the city."

"I'm getting radio messages that Error's palace is getting surrounded," A raccoon program replied, "The northern portion of the city has been bombed by some sort of sting ray shaped ship."

"Dom," Sapphire growled, "That idiot must have stolen my ship."

***a little while earlier.

Dom huffed as he sprinted down one of the subterranean tunnels. He knew Sapphire probably wouldn't be happy with what he was about to do but his friends were going to need air support. Dom suddenly came to a hatch and climbed out of it. A few yards away from the hatch was Sapphire's ship. Dom sprinted up the walkway of the ship and passed the sleeping quarters and into the bridge. Dome then sat down at the pilot's seat and studied the controls. There was a joystick like device on the right arm of the chair and a keyboard on the left. Curious, Dom pressed a red button on the keyboard. This caused a missile to shoot off the wing of the ship and crash into a nearby mountain.

"_I need an instruction manual or something_," Dom thought to himself.

Dom looked around and found a touch screen laying on the ground. Dom picked it up and began to look through the files on it. Once Dom found the instructions an option came up on the screen:

Crash course Y/N

Uncertain of what he was doing, Dom hit the 'Y' option and was visibly frightened when two cables shot out of the screen and latched onto his head before zapping the information into him.

After a few seconds the cables vanished and Dom was surprised to find that he now knew exactly how to fly the ship. Whatever the cabled were they had obviously taught him how to fly the ship.

Dom, with his knew knowledge in hand, pressed a few buttons on the keyboards and caused the ship to take off and flew it towards the city. Down below Dom could see Error's guards slowly pushing back the prisoner programs. Dom pressed a button on the keyboard that opened a hatch on the bottom of the ship and began to drop bombs on the guards. The bombs screamed to the ground and exploded with such massive force that it rocked the ship that had dropped them.

Dom then headed over to the Grid's airfield where he could see ships getting ready to take off.

"Not to you don't," Dom said as he fired several missiles at the grounded ships. The ships were in such close proximity that the explosion set off a chain reaction with the other ships and soon turned the entire airfield into one large inferno.

"That takes care of that," Dom said to himself, "I'd better land near the palace, I imagine Tails and Sapphire will be waiting for me."

Tails sheathed his disc as the last remaining guards outside the palace entrance were shattered by Sapphire's gunfire. A few hours had passed since the rebellion had began and the enemy was finally starting to weaken. What remaining guards Error had were inside the palace. Tails and Sapphire had regrouped and were currently waiting for Dom.

The said puma arrive shortly, landing Sapphire's ship near the palace gates and quickly descending from the walkway.

"Sorry I had to borrow your ship Sapphire," Dom said, "I figured you guys would need the air support and you unavailable to fly the thing.."

"That's alright," Sapphire said approvingly, "You saved us a whole lot of trouble from that airfield."

Sapphire and Dom then turned to Tails.

"What should our next move be." Dom said.

"Error has less than thirty guards left from what I have estimated," Tails said, "He is probably waiting for us in his palace with Havoc. We need to go in there kill both of them and reopen this system to the internet so these programs can return to wherever they came from. Once that is done we'll find the program that will send us back to the user world."

"Should we bring any of the other programs with us," Sapphire asked.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Tails said shaking his head, "We're the only ones strong enough to kill Error. They would just get killed in the crossfire."

"You should tell them of our plan then," Dom said.

Tails nodded and went over to address the small crowd of prisoners.

"Attention programs of the Grid," Tails said loud enough for all the programs to hear him, "My comrades and I will be going alone from here on out. We are the only ones capable of taking down Error and Havoc. We need you to stay calm and wait for us to finish the job. I know some of you probably wish to come with us but you must trust us. You will be safer out here. Once we have destroyed Error and Havoc, we will open a portal to send you all back to your systems."

There was a large amount of chatter between the programs but the general consensus seemed to be that they agreed with Tails, probably because most of them knew he was the one who managed to escape from the games and therefore respected his judgment.

Tails turned and walked back to Dom and Sapphire. The three then entered the palace gates and walked to the front door. Inside was a long hallway that led to another door. The trio walked to the door and entered what appeared to be a large ball room. Seated in a circle of chairs were the twenty remaining guards, Havoc, and Error.

"You've been quite a thorn in my side," Error growled as Tails, Dom, and Sapphire entered the room.

"Give it up Error you've got nowhere else to run," Tails said.

"I don't think so," Error said, "I have put far too much time and effort into master Eggman's plans to let it all go to waste. Havoc, kill them."

"Yes master," Havoc growled, then turning to Tails, "You've been quite a thorn in my side as well little fox. Never have I been so humiliatingly defeated by such a little whelp. But now that I have my arm back I can try to win back my honor."

"We'll see about that," Tails said motioning Dom and Sapphire to stand back, "Lets settle this right here and now."

"I intend to," Havoc replied with nasty sneer on his face.

Havoc pulled out his laser boomerang in his left hand and his data disc in his right. He hurled them both at Tails who ducked and hurled his data disc at Havoc. Havoc ducked and kicked the disc out of the air, sending it back at Tails so fast that Tails had to duck to avoid getting sliced by his own disc. Tails disc passed him and imbedded itself in a pillar. When Tails picked up his disc, he got an idea. Tails lined up Havoc and threw his disc again and Havoc simply stepped out of the way. Unfortunately for Havoc, Tails had been anticipating this and lined Havoc up so that a pillar was behind him. When Havoc stepped to the side the disc deflected off the pillar straight at Havoc who was unable to get out of the in time and had his right leg cleaved off of his body. Havoc toppled to the ground, dropping his boomerang and data disc in the process. As Havoc reached out to grab his boomerang Tails smashed it with his foot. Havoc looked up at Tails with utter hatred in his eyes.

"Go ahead," Havoc growled, "Finish me off."

"I have a better idea," Tails said as he grabbed Havoc's data disc and began to type into it.

"What are you doing," Error said getting up from his throne and began walking towards Tails. He was stopped by Dom and Sapphire who drew their discs and got in his way.

"GUARDS KILL THEM," Error roared and the guards began to approach Dom and Sapphire.

Sapphire pulled out a spare grenade from that she had saved after raiding the armory, pulled the pin, and hurled at the approaching guards. There was a loud explosion and the guards were now no more than cubes of glass.

Error turned around and attempted to flee only to be blocked by Dom. He turned around to flee in the other direction and was stopped when Sapphire's data disc flew inched from his face.

"You better stay where you are," Sapphire said, "Tails will deal with you in a minute."

"Done," Tails said, and Dom, Sapphire, and Error looked over to see Tails and Havoc, the latter who was now standing on his feet with both legs, shaking hands.

"You beast!" Error shouted, "What have you done to Havoc."

"I reprogrammed him to serve me," Tails said, then turning to the reprogrammed Havoc, "Destroy Error and then delete yourself."

"Yes master," Havoc replied before sprinting at Error.

Error did not even have time to blink before he was shattered into pieces by Havoc's data disc. Havoc, following Tails orders to the letter, threw his disc at a solid wall and stood still as it bounced back and shattered him.

"Finally," Sapphire said sheathing her disc, "Let's go open the internet so the programs can go home and then get out of here ourselves."

Tails and Dom nodded before exiting the room and searching for the control center of the palace. After ten minutes they found it in the top room of the palace. Tails activated the sequence to open the internet and he, Sapphire, and Dom watched out the window as their fellow programs were warped back to the computers they originally came from. Tails then opened the computer option that would send all three of to the user world via the laser system that sent him to the Grid in the first place.

"Any last word before we head out," Tails said with his hand next to the activation button.

"Goodbye Error and good riddance," Sapphire said.

"So long, and thanks for all the bliss," Dom said, "Now your turn Tails."

"Well," Tails said thinking about what to say, "I don't really know what to say. I was sent here by the enemy of my world. But in doing so I made to great new friends."

Dom and Sapphire smiled at Tails comment.

"I can't think of anything else to say," Tails said, "What say I send us on our way."

"Let's rock and roll," Sapphire said cracking her knuckles, "I can't wait to see the user world."

"True that," Dom smiled.

Tails took one last look out over the Grid before hitting the button. In a flash of light, the three were gone.

In the Computer room of Eggman's base, the laser system lowered from the ceiling and spat out a cloud of particles formed into a fox, a puma, and a ferret. Dom and Sapphire looked around in curiosity as Tails looked at the clock on the wall. His mouth dropped when realized that only one hour had passed since he entered the Grid. The several days he had spent in the computerized world had only been an hour in the real world. Seconds after the three were materialized, Tails communicator crackled to life.

"Tails come in this is Sonic," A voice said over the radio, "Are you alright, I lost your radio signal for an hour."

"I'm fine," Tails replied into his communicator, "What is the status with Eggman."

"I managed to beat him out of the base," Sonic said, "What happened to you."

"It's a long story," Tails said, "I'll tell you when we get back to my workshop. By the way I have some knew friends with me."

"Sweet, you'll have to introduce me to them at your house," Sonic said, "I'll meet you there."

"Who was that," Dom asked as Tails radio went silent.

"That was Sonic," Tails said, "He's a friend of mine who's dying to meet you guys."

"Cool," Sapphire said still looking around the room, "Well this is your world Tails so lead us to him."

Tails nodded as the trio left the room. On the way out of the base Sapphire requested that Tails fill her and Dom in on the user world. Tails happily obliged, they did have a lot to learn about their new home after all.

**And so another story comes to a close. I hoped you all liked it and I apologize if you think it was too short. I will soon begin on another story and I hope you all read it as well. Please remember that all reviews are greatly appreciated. I'll see you next time.**

**-Ownage Imminent**


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